


Domino Effect

by Anaross



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, Season/Series 07, Time Loop, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-05
Updated: 2015-03-05
Packaged: 2018-03-15 01:59:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3433580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anaross/pseuds/Anaross
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spike slips away unnoticed after Angel gives Buffy the amulet that might help in the final battle and runs directly into a tearful Buffy with a message from the future. </p><p>AU after End of Days.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Don't own them. Wish I did. I'd treat them so nice. Really.

_In the crypt, at the End of End of Days_  
Spike 1.0  
  
Buffy hadn't kissed him since– well. Okay.  Point taken. Didn't deserve kisses or kindness, and he'd gotten kindness, so more than he deserved.  

But there she was, hanging on Angel. Kissing him like she'd been wanting this for months. Like she'd been waiting for years.

Spike waited around, lurking in the shadows of the temple, watching as the loony knocked Angel out– pillock wasn't worth the Italian shoes he wore, considering he had vampire strength– he shoulda at least made a show of it. But now, he went over like a side of beef when the loon hit him.  Spike waited to make sure Buffy'd defeat the crazy priest, which she did with a dispatch that made him wonder.  The First Evil must have wanted that to happen, wanted his vessel or his prophet or whatever the hell the loon was, to die so quickly and ignominiously, because Spike had reason to know how powerful the loon could be.  So the First must have sapped that power right out, and that meant he had plans for Buffy.

Well. Not if Spike had anything to say about it.  

The First Prat, First Evil, whatever it called itself, was hovering beside Spike, buzzing around like a gnat, and just as hard to swat.  "That bitch....Yeah, she needs you real bad."  It was Buffy's light, lilting voice, and he wanted to lean into it, listen to it– not the message, which was maybe true but irrelevant. But the voice. That low, seductive, we're-buddies voice.  Buffy's voice, only sounding more intimate than Buffy sounded when she was holding his–

Long time ago.  Over now.  

He turned up his collar and headed out of the temple, the First trailing behind him, whispering sedition in Buffy's voice all the way, and he might have given in, because he liked sedition, and loved Buffy's voice.  But then–

"Spike?"

A wavering Buffy voice. Not the First.  He looked behind him and the apparition vanished with a kind of visual pop.  So the Buffy ahead of him, standing there in the shadow of the Peabody crypt, wasn't the First. Wasn't Buffy either– he could still hear her, her voice increasingly desperate, as she tried to get Angel to stay or notice her or love her back.  

No. This wasn't his Buffy. Couldn't be her. This one was coming to him, dressed in a simple brown frock, her face streaked with tears, her hands out to him.

"Buffy," he said, because she was a Buffy, some kind of Buffy, because her hands on his were warm and imperative, and her eyes were so longing... not his Buffy. Not the First either.

"Who are you?" he demanded. But he didn't let go of her hands.

"From the future," she replied, and he looked down into her eyes. She was crying. For him. Well, that was new.

"I guess I didn't make it, huh?"

She pursed her lips and looked annoyed, and that was more what he was used to, and it made him smile.

She said, "You're supposed to ask how I got back here from the future. Willow won't be happy if I tell her you didn't even care about her very cool high-tech spell."

He ought to care. But time-travel always gave him a headache, even when Mr. Spock explained it in that long-suffering Vulcan way of his on the Sci-fi Channel. And he didn't believe in it anyway. There was one direction of time, and that was forward, and it went just the pace of the human heartbeat. Not too slow and not too fast.  She was an illusion, a Buffy who cried for him and held out her hands like that.  But she was a pleasing illusion.  He preferred it to the First's insinuating holograms. "How long you got?"

She swallowed hard. "Maybe an hour. Then Willow's going to grab me back. Spike, I want to tell you–"  

"I know. I have to wear the amulet Angel gave you. And it's going to kill me. Already factored that in, pet."

Her face went bleak.  "I– I haven't been doing so well. I mean, with you gone. I keep wishing I'd –"

"What?" he asked.

Her hands tightened in his. "Made love to you. While I had the chance."

Oh. Well. "Is that why you–"

"Yeah."  And she lifted up her face and kissed him, and he tasted the salt of her tears on her mouth– on his tongue, and he didn't care if this was an illusion, because it was Buffy, and she wept for him, and wanted him, and that was worth everything. Everything that had come, and was to come in the future too.

They found their way – blindly, kissing, touching– to a house so recently abandoned the sheets on the bed smelled right off the clothesline fresh.

She'd said she wanted to make love, and now he understood what she meant. It was the first time for them.  All this time, he'd been longing for what they'd once had– the passion, the fever– but now, as she lay beneath him, her hand reaching up to touch his face, her eyes filled with....  

It was the first time they'd ever made love.  

And they only had a stolen moment or two before Willow grabbed her back– or before his common sense overcame his desire and he accepted reality again– that this wasn't her, that she wasn't with him.

"Buffy," he said, as they dressed again– a hard enough task, with all those stops for kisses– and then he couldn't remember what he was going to say.

She stopped with her hand on the top button of her dress. She was starting to shimmer. Willow, common sense, be damned to them both– "Spike," she said, her voice harsh now. She gripped his hand. "Listen. When I tell you, please. Think of me. I mean, me me. This one. The one to come– please. Don't tell me I don't. Okay? Just... don't."

And her hand dissolved in his. It felt like a vampire dusting. But it was only time-travel. Or reality. Or something that dissolved her and left him alone.

He found his way back to the Revello house and down the steps to the basement. And Buffy– the real Buffy, his Buffy, only of course she wasn't his, and he knew this incontrovertibly now... she wasn't his, not yet anyway, maybe never, or maybe only too late– came down later, her hand in her pocket.

He saw her face, tense and pale, and he let it go. She didn't need him to be– oh, whatever he was now that he'd felt her tears on his tongue and heard her voice saying his name the way she never really said it. She didn't need him to be lost in a dream.  So he shook the mist out of his mind and focused on the here-and-now. What would he be, if he hadn't held her a half hour ago? He would be stupid and stubborn and pleading. Begging for her crumbs – just pretending to demand them.  Still crumbs, no matter what.  

So he went through the motions she would expect of him, made a bit of a jealous show about Angel, then demanded the amulet that would kill him.  And she gave it to him like it was some sort of honor, and it was, and he would have known that and felt at an hour ago.  And he would have been honored that once again she wanted to stay the night with him, even if she didn't mean what that other Buffy had meant, even if she didn't kiss him or touch his face or make love to him.

It was an honor. And it was all she could give him, and he should be glad to get it.

But– but he thought of her, that other her. She would be her in a couple weeks (well, if Mr. Spock was right, and you could never count on that), and she would regret this night.

Until she came back, and –

Time travel always gave him a headache.  It didn't make any sense.  It was too disorienting, to imagine an endless arc of Buffies, a mirror sequence of Buffies, each coming back to get what she'd lost, forever and ever, never settling, never stopping, one Buffy after another.

Better to think what he really thought– that he'd imagined that other Buffy (even though her cream was on his thighs, and her tears were still on his tongue), and this was the only Buffy, and that very soon she'd let him go, and he'd let her go, and whatever would happen would happen.

So he held her, that night and the next, and he let the other dissolve. There was only here, and only now, and only this one, stalwart and untouching and all she had to be.

He had to focus. Had to concentrate.

So that last day, when they were standing in the fire with the shrieks of the dying all around, he felt the heat of the amulet, the answering heat of his soul. He should be feeling at peace.  But he felt a thumping in him like the thump of a heart, like the thump of African drums, and he could hardly be still, so filled was he with power. Restless with it.  And he wanted to tell her, but his throat was tight, and what he did manage to say didn't make much sense. But she smiled into his eyes, like she knew what he meant, and she took his hand, lacing her fingers with his.  

There was fire, but it didn't burn.  The fire all around them burned, but not the fire in their hands.  He held her gaze– there was no time. He had to make her go. But her fingers tightened, and her face went intent, and she said it.  "I love you."

It burned worse than the flames, worse than the amulet. She said it now.  Like this is what it took to get those words from her.  Like he had to die to hear them.  And that meant that it wasn't true. If those words were true, she would have said them before this.  

He opened his mouth, and started to deny it.  He was going to say it in some polite way, something that acknowledged her words and the effort it must have taken to speak them, but didn't bind her to them– or let her think that he was so pathetic he could be fooled like this.

Then he remembered her. The other one. The one with tears in her eyes.  _Don't tell me I don't._

So he bit off the front part of what he was going to say, and spit out the last part. "Thanks for saying it."  

Her face lightened, and she stared up at him. Then, as another earthquake struck the cave, she wrenched her hand away.  He said, "Now go–"

And before he finished what he meant to say (something jaunty and Titus-Oatesish), Buffy had reached up and grabbed the amulet.  He tried to dodge away– it was burning her hand, but she was too quick. She yanked it over his head and flung it into the pit, and started at a run to the stairs. "Come on!" she called back.  

He started after her. But the amulet was reflecting up from wherever it landed in the crater, and it pierced a hole in the roof.  A wall of golden sunlight separated them.

"Go on," he said. "I'll find another way out."

She cast him an agonized look back.  

"I promise," he said, and smiled at her, and turned to see that the earthquake had opened up a fissure in the stone right in front of him. "I promise."

She shouldn't have been able to hear him over the roar of the fire and the screams of shifting rock. But she did, and her relieved laughter floated through the shaft of sunlight.  "Meet you on the other side."

He waited till she was up the stairs, then he plunged into the crevasse ahead. He could do it. He could get through. He could meet her–

And then the earth shook, and the way behind him filled with rock. And the way ahead– the sunlight poured in and moved like a freight train towards him as the roof collapsed.  He stood there, his arms out. At the last second, he looked down at his hands, saw the burn mark on one palm, and the silver ring on his thumb.  A moment was all he had.  He wrenched off the ring and threw it forward, into the full sun.  And then the light came to him, and over him, and through him. There was fire, but it didn't burn.

But he did. 


	2. Chapter 2

The End of _End of Days_  
(Spike 2.0)

It was cold out here, alone in the night.  

At least it had been warm in the temple– heated up by Buffy and Angel's embrace, and maybe the hot blood spilling out of that preacher man.  (Spike hesitated just a moment. Fresh blood. Crazy preacher blood, didn't even quite smell human, but fresh– nah. Drinking him meant going back in there and scenting Angel's expensive Italian cologne mixing with Buffy's honest slayer sweat.)

But it was cold out here, alone in the night.  Alone now that even the First had peeled off and left him.  Guilty ones to haunt, dead people to impersonate.  A First Evil's work was never done.

He kind of missed that apparition of Buffy.  Yeah, evil, and incorporeal, but the face was sweet and bitter, and the voice was light and bitter, and he could almost imagine that it was Buffy dogging his tracks. Only she never would. Never should.  She wasn't meant to follow.  

He ought to go remind her of that– that it was wrong, her trailing after Angel, pleading for his attention. Trying to get him to say he still loved her, or whatever it was she needed to hear from him.  That he'd stay and help her. That she mattered more than anything.

She had heard all that from Spike just last night, and –

Well, enough whinging.  He had things to do.  Plenty of things to do. There were abandoned 7-11 stores with whole racks of ciggies (only he'd quit smoking again, couldn't remember why– still drank beer, though, and that wouldn't go bad in the 7-11 refrigerators).  Hell, if he wanted to be useful, he could even go scout the high school, see what action there was around the Hellmouth. Check out Willie's for the latest demon gossip– except Willie and all the demons in town were smarter than he was, and had long since decamped to Palm Springs.

Plenty to do.  But his way turned towards Revello.  He was like a sodding homing pigeon, always going back there to roost.  But– but just for the nonce. She needed him, or so he hoped, if only for another day or two. He'd stay, just to provide the contrast.  Just to let her know that not every man left.

But then he would leave.  When the First was dealt with, and the Turok-Han beat back, he'd leave.  There was a world out there beyond the Welcome to Sunnydale sign.  He knew that once, and it was time he reminded himself of that again.  This chapter in his unlife was almost done.  He'd help Buffy then give her what she really wanted– her freedom.  She couldn't have that as long as he was around.

So. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow....

Maybe they'd all die in the battle.  Heroically, all that.  Well, he'd want Dawn to get out.  Eternal green energy– the world would need her.  And maybe one slayer had to survive.  Kennedy was mean enough to make it out, and losing the battle would give her some reason for that chip on her shoulder.  Yeah. Kennedy would make it out, and Dawn, and Anya because someone needed to handle all the insurance claims.....

He heard Buffy before he saw her– heard that decisive snap of her footsteps on the flagstoned path. But it was ahead of him near the gates, not behind by the temple.  He stopped, hand spread out, feeling like he had to do when his oversensitive senses collided with what he knew of reality.

"Spike?" she whispered.  

"Slayer," he answered warily.  It wasn't the First. He'd never been able to smell the First.  Never felt the First in his fingertips the way he felt Buffy now.

And then she was in his arms, kissing him frantically.  Okay. Not the First. But not Buffy either. He bore it pretty stoically, all things considered, took it like a man, that hungry mouth on his face, his neck, his throat, her breath all ragged and passionate. It was too bloody much like dreams he'd had, and they never ended well, or they ended too well, so eventually he pushed her gently away.  

"Hey," she said, her face all disgruntled, and he couldn't help it– he bent and kissed her sulky mouth, and that would have got him damned for sure, if a century of slaughter hadn't already done so.

"Buffy," he whispered into her hair, although he knew it wasn't her.

"I don't have long." She drew away slightly and looked over her shoulder for some unseen pursuer. "I have to go back in a few minutes."

"Go where?" He didn't believe in her, but that sorrow hit him just as true as it would have hit if she had really been real.  

"Back to the future."  She said this without blinking, like it was no big deal.

"Like Marty McFly."

She gave him a look, half-exasperation and half-affection. "Only this is real, not a movie. Okay?"

"Okay."  He tried to infuse some conviction into that, but even with her all warm in his arms– especially with her all warm in his arms– he didn't believe this one bit.

"You don't have to believe in me," she said, just like she'd been reading his mind. "You just have to come with me.  And listen, okay? And remember. And when it's time, do what I told you tonight. Just this once, do what I say?"

"Well, just this once."

She grabbed his hand and they ran like children, holding hands, laughing, through the deserted streets, the night cool and quiet around them.  Somewhere there was another Buffy, one that didn't reach out like this for his hand, and an Angel unless he'd already left, and a First Evil and his army, and a looming apocalypse.  But this moment, just this once, there was this Buffy and the night air all sharp and clear and the excitement all tight in his throat as they ran through the darkness.

She pulled up on the first of  the broad stone steps of the high school. "Wait," she whispered, like there were principals and hall monitors around to take down her name and give her detention. "Let me get my bearings."

He was okay with that, because her hand was still warm in his, and her mouth was pursed as she gazed down at the ground.  "Here."  She drew him over to the hydrangea bushes that separated the school lawn from the street.  "Right here.  Know where we are? I mean, what this is right above?"

He remembered back to the weeks in the school basement, where he wandered following his mad thoughts.  "There's a big boiler, and pipes coming out of it, connecting with the old steam tunnel."

"Right. It survived – that tunnel. Right under the collapse of this road. So listen to me. I pull off that amulet you were wearing, the one that burned everything, and I throw it into the pit.  And that's when the school starts collapsing, and I head up the stairs.  And you're going to want to go right.  I mean, I saw. You didn't hesitate. You headed right for the crack in the stone. Instinct. But you're wrong."

"Hey," he said, offended. "I trust my instinct. Never served me wrong before."

She scowled at him. "I could list about five times– never mind. Just ...."  She reached into her pocket and yanked out something that glinted in the glow of the streetlight.  A ring. His ring.  

He looked down at his hand, and there it was, still on his thumb.  

"It's yours," she said. "See? There's that scratch the Fyarl fin made."

"Nah," he replied. "I just told you that.  Really I got that from carpenter-boy's backhand with the hammer last month."

"Doesn't matter. It's your ring. The one you're wearing now. The only thing–" here she took a breath, a big breath. "The only thing that's left of you."

Well. That did give him a bit of a chill.  Sure, he fully expected to be dust in a week's time.  Had planned on it particularly. But to hear her say it like that– gave him a bit of a chill, that was all.  "Woulda dusted with me."

"You must have taken it off, when you knew you were going to ... die. I found it the other day. I went down into the crater to try to find you."

"You– " He swallowed back the pain in his throat. "You came back to get me?"

"Yeah. We ... well, we promised. _Meet you on the other side._ But... but you didn't make it."  

They both fell silent at that.  He briefly contemplated the unknowable– him, gone to dust, nothing now; but at least she lived on. That was something.  "You're okay now, right?"

Exasperated again, she spread her hands.  She had to bend her thumb to keep the ring on.  "I'm all right. I told you. You have to listen.  You need to turn left, even if it looks wrong. Just push aside some of the rocks and you'll find the door to the boiler room. And then keep going till you get into the tunnel, and maybe make a wall of rocks if you can, to give yourself a bit more space. And I'll come and find you. Okay?"

"Okay." But none of this seemed likely.  Buffy was back there at the temple making out with his grandsire, and it seemed a very long way from that to a promise to meet Spike on the other side of the apocalypse.  "How'd we get to that point? You know. Making promises."

"Stop sounding so skeptical," she said.  "Maybe, just maybe, I love you. Ever think of that?"

"Well, no. Not lately anyway."

She balled up her fist and made like to punch him.  But then she opened her hand up and took hold of his sleeve.  "Well, you believed it then. When I said it."

He shook his head. It was all getting mixed up, the past and the future, his future and her past. What he wanted and what he knew was true.  "When did you say it?"

"That last minute. In the Hellmouth.  And you believed me then.  You said so. You even thanked me for saying it."

"I did? Well, I suppose it was the gentlemanly thing to do–"

"No!" She gave his sleeve a sharp tug.  "I meant it. And you meant it too. That's why I grabbed the amulet and pulled it off you, because I knew it was supposed to be fate, that you were supposed to wear it until the end, but I didn't want there to be an end. Not to you.  So then, that's when you promised to live and –" her voice broke here, and she turned away. "And meet me after it was over. And I knew you meant that too, and so when you... didn't, I knew something was wrong.  That's when I went looking, and found the ring. And– and the dust." She was quiet for a moment, then whispered, "I know vampire dust when I see it. Even in the midst of all that ash and rubble. Maybe... I mean maybe it was fate that you'd die there. Maybe I can't change the past. But I... I had to try. And I have to try now."

"So," he said, "left instead of right."

"Right. I mean, left. Spike–" she gave him a hard look. "You do know your left from your right, right?"

"Yeah," he declared, and then, because it was hard to lie to her, and anyway, she'd been out driving with him, he he had to add, "Most of the time."

"Give me your hands."

Reluctantly he held out his hands, and she grabbed them both. She tugged the ring off his right thumb then hesitated, still holding his hand.

He flexed his left hand. "This is left. Know that much."

She shook her head. "I want– I want something of mine going with you. To keep you safe."  She stuck the ring in her blouse pocket, and reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out its mate.  Same silver ring. Just a week older. (Or a complete figment of his imagination, like the girl holding his hand.)  She jammed that ring, the one she said was hers, onto his left thumb.  "Okay. So you're standing there in the Hellmouth and everything is collapsing, and I'm running up the stairs, and you can't follow me because there's too much sun.  And you turn back and look at the walls of the basement and you look down at your hand and you see Buffy's ring, right? I mean, correct?"

"Yeah."

"And that's the way you go. To the left wall. And you pull away all the rocks and there's the door. And you pull it open and go in and find the tunnel."

"Okay," he replied, staring down at the ring on his hand.  "But– if I turn that way, and never go to the right, and never take off my ring to leave for you, how will you find it?"

"Spike–" She grabbed him and pulled him down and kissed him hard. "Don't. Just don't. We just have a couple more minutes and I want to spend it with you and not Marty Mcfly."

"Yeah. Always gives me a headache, thinking about time-travel.  What– what are you doing?"

He didn't really need to ask, it being pretty obvious that she was undressing him, her hands busy on his shirt buttons and his fly and her mouth busy on his chest.  But she pulled away long enough to say, "I didn't do this when we had time. And now we don't have time. But ... but hurry. I need you."

They couldn't really get too far in a couple minutes, not the way he liked to make love. But in a couple minutes, well, they could get far enough, if both of them really focused. And they did, there on the grass, the scent of hydrangeas all around.

They came together, sharp, immediate, and he was just about to kiss her when she disappeared.

Slowly he sat up. Buttoned up. Pulled his duster back on. Thought it through. If this was a dream, well, she would have disappeared before they came, because that was the way his dreams had been, unfulfilling and taunting, for a year now.

He rose and made his way back to Revello.  His ring– her ring– burned hot on his left thumb.  He brought his hand up to his face and breathed deep, smelling her and the flat tang of the silver.

 

 

She– the other she– was sitting waiting for him on the basement stairs when he finally returned.  As he slid past her, he briefly considered telling her all. But he didn't know how to explain it, and anyway, she was too tense to make any sense of it. Hell, he was as relaxed as he'd ever been– that fierce coupling had done him in– and he couldn't make any sense of it.

"Buffy," he said, stripping off his coat, and then his shirt, contemplating the grass stains and the spot of mud on the back.  He tossed the duster on his narrow bed and headed to the washing machine.  Jeans too. He put his hand on the button fly, ready to undo it, ready for her to get up and flee back to the kitchen, where there weren't any ex-lovers stripping bare. But she stayed there on the steps, all stubborn and wary, and finally he turned back to her, only two buttons undone on the jeans. "Something I can do for you?"

"Where were you?"

That demand left him silent.  He actually started to answer, starting back around sunset, when the slayerettes went out on a patrol, and he followed them, just to make sure they were safe.  And they didn't ever notice him– Buffy should know that, that a vampire trailed them every step of the way, and they didn't even notice. He waited in vain for Kennedy or Amanda or someone to sense a predator at their backs.

After that, he went and gathered some supplies from the abandoned Walmart on the edge of town. (Target had better quality, but also a security guard, more brave than smart, sitting outside the locked door.)  Brought back the powdered milk and the tube socks and the D batteries and left them on the porch.

Then he tracked Buffy to the temple, and the rest was– well, unreal. (Not the Buffy-Angel snogfest. That was way too real. But what happened after.)

But he didn't tell her any of that.  He just shoved the shirt and some blue towels into the washer and squirted in some liquid soap and turned the switch.  "Around. You got any darks to put in here? Kinda wasting the soap and water--"

She came down the stairs and came up to him and grabbed his arm and spun him around. "You were with some girl, weren't you?"

He reached back and closed the washer lid, just to give himself some time.  "Why you ask that?"

She reached over to his bare chest, her fingers bent and hard on his nipple.  "She left her lipstick on you."

He looked down and saw her hand pull away, a smear of red on her index finger.  Hmm. "It's hard for me to get lipstick on the right place, you know, without a reflection."

She didn't laugh. She shoved back from him, shoved him against the washer.  "I can't believe, with everything going on, that you'd–"

It began to burn in him. Her anger. That she'd feel anger now. Given everything. "That I'd what?  Take a little comfort while I still can? From–" he thought of Buffy, that other Buffy, and knew she was real, somehow, somewhere, because she wore the same shade of lipstick as this Buffy did when she had time to make up her face. "From a woman that wants me. That I want.  That a sin, Buffy? I don't know, because this soul of mine is pretty new. But I didn't think there was much sin involved, nothing big enough to take notice of–"

"You were with someone else."  Her voice was flat, hard, unyielding. _You're dead to me_ , that was what she was saying. This was the old Buffy who never forgave him anything, even when, this time, he'd done nothing wrong–

Of course he had, and he knew it and she knew it, even if she didn't know what he'd done.  Loved someone else, even if that someone else was herself.  

He'd still betrayed her.  And he knew it and she knew it.  Wasn't fair, wasn't right, that she could hang off Angel that way, her eyes all soft and unfocused, and still expect Spike to stay as true as Sir Galahad.  But that's the way it was. Unfair, but that was part of the tacit bargain they'd made– the bargain only now he understood–  when she took him back after he'd killed again and took the chip out and trusted him to be good. She'd gone against her family and her instincts and her experience, all for him, and all she needed in return was loyalty.

The best defense was a good offense. He could fling that temple-kiss at her.  Tell her she was a fine one to talk, still trying – after they'd been lovers and something more and something less much of these three years– to get back the man that'd thrown her away.  Tell her she had no right to expect loyalty from him when–

But instead he just dropped down on the bed and held out his hand. His left hand, with the ring glinting in the overhead light.  Would she notice the ring was on the wrong hand? No. She didn't even look at him.

"You got something for me?"

She was back on the basement steps, her posture rigid, her hand tight on the wooden railing. "What do you mean?"

"The trinket Angel brought you."

Now she turned around.  She knew he'd seen her with Angel. She knew what it meant. She raised her stubborn chin and was going to say something, but he couldn't stand to hear it. Not now. The two of them trading excuses– they'd come too far for that.  He cut her off. "The one with all the power. I believe it's mine now."

She stared at him. Took his measure.  It wasn't about them anymore. Wasn't about his pathetic little love, anymore, but all that fate of the world rubbish.  She said slowly, "Yours? How do you figure?"

He cast his mind back. Tried to remember why he'd seen that amulet and knew it was his, even before Buffy– the future Buffy– told him how he had worn it around his neck and she had seized it and torn it off. Oh. Right. Soul. Qualification number one, and wouldn't you know it. "Someone with a soul, but more than human? Angel meant to wear it; that means I'm the qualified party."

Now Buffy hesitated. She had her hand in her pocket, and all the anger had seeped out of her face. "It's volatile. We don't know—"

"You'll be needing someone strong to bear it, then. You planning on giving it to Andrew?"

Buffy looked down at the trinket, and then back at Spike. "Angel said the amulet was meant to be worn by a champion."

That was that. The Great Oz had spoken.  

Tiredly Spike thought he'd have to get it away from her later, when she slept. Couldn't let her wear it. Angel would let her wear it, but Spike wasn't going to let her bear all the risk. Not this time.  He turned back to the washer, calculating how long it would take before she fell asleep and he could steal in and search through her clothing–

She put her hand on his arm and turned him. Gently, this time.  And when he was facing her, she took his left hand and turned it over and put the amulet there.

At least she trusted him that much. That way.  "Been called a lot of things in my time...."

He shoved the amulet into his jeans pocket.  The wash cycle had started, the machine vibrating slowly against his back. "Thanks."

She started back to the stairs, then stopped halfway there. "Faith is still in my room."

"Noticed she wasn't out with the slayerettes," Spike said. "She getting back to par?"

Buffy didn't turn around. "She's better. But I think she still needs a bed to herself."

Oh. Right. He was supposed to pick up on that.  Or maybe not.  The other-Buffy was right. He couldn't trust his instincts no matter what he wanted. Couldn't assume he was reading this Buffy right.  And anyway, if she wanted him, why didn't she just say it out, like the other one had done? Probably she didn't want him, and he just wanted to think she did, and cor, it was just too much, trying to puzzle this through and feel her though he could still feel the other one, warm and wanting against him, her mouth on his bare chest–  

He grabbed a shirt out of the clean laundry basket, and his duster off the bed. "You can have my bed, slayer."  

She could say _stay._ But she didn't. She wouldn't.  She just stood back to let him past. "Where are you going?"

He told her the truth.  "I'm going to check out the high school again. Looking for exits. Ones that don't go straight down, anyway."

"But–"

She didn't say it, whatever protest she was going to make.

But you won't need any exits, maybe she would have said. The amulet means you're going to burn.

Or maybe she would have said, But you're lying. You're going to that someone else now.

Or maybe she would have said, But let me come with you.

She didn't say any of that, and he didn't ask.  They had come too far, been together too long, for her still to hesitate like this, and for him not to know which she meant.  He couldn't stay and wait for either of them to figure it out.  He headed up the stairs and back into the night.

 

 

When he returned just before sunrise, his bed was warm and the covers rumpled. She must have heard him come in and jumped up and had time only to pull the coverlet up before escaping.  He crawled in, weary in every muscle – there had been a stray Turok or two to deal with at the high school– and breathed in her warmth, and thought of the future. There had to be a future.

But she had to be strong to get them there.  She spent most of the day closeted with Giles and Willow, plotting some strategy. The axe figured into it, that much he got. Strategy wasn't his forte, anyway. Hand him a dagger and point him in the right direction. That was his strength. Hand-to-hand. Direct. No maneuvers. Straight at 'em.  Maybe the amulet would be like that, just more high-tech. A laser beam, say.  He spent some time in the basement, trying to fix the amulet to the point of a dagger, but no use. He was going to have to wear the damned thing, gaudy as it was.

Should've let Angel keep it.  Not much hope he'd stick around and fight with it, but at least it'd be good for a laugh, that Liz Taylor reject lying all tawdry on Angel's Armani shirt.

The next morning came too soon.  There was a night in between, but it wasn't memorable.  There was a moment when everyone else was attending to the D&D game in the living room, and Faith and the murderous principal had disappeared upstairs, and Buffy stood in the kitchen touching the refrigerator like she wasn't quite sure what she wanted to eat. "Spike, do you want –"

It was probably a cue. He was supposed to tell her what he wanted– that he wanted her, that he loved her, that he wanted to be with her, that a moment now with her would make eternity in hell bearable. But she knew all that. He'd said that enough times. That had never been the issue.

She should say it herself. Stay with me. Or I want to be with you. Or let's fuck.  Or something.

But she couldn't. It would be a weakness, and now she needed her strength.  

He watched her stare into the refrigerator, and all his anger melted. Just like that. It was his weakness. His love.  He couldn't hate her for more than a minute, because he knew too well what she was facing.

He was her weakness. Always had been. Reflected every vulnerability she had and gave it back to her in spades.  

She had to let him go. And he had to let her let him go.

 He went past her and down the basement stairs. He almost left the door open. But whatever else he was, he'd never been coy.

And she found somewhere else to spend the night.  

 

 

It was all pretty hectic down in the hellmouth, and the stupid amulet wasn't working, and he had to fight the old-fashioned way (which was just fine with him– never had much truck with the mystical powers of gems, not since the Gem of Amarra, anyway, which broke his heart).  That meant he was all the way across the pit when Buffy went down, and not a lot closer when she got back up again.  And only a bit closer still when the amulet finally kicked into first-gear and started thrumming.  

"Ouch," he said, because it kind of hurt, that pulsating force jamming through his chest and towards his–

"Buffy," he called out.  Not loudly, but she heard even over the screams and roars, and she said his name back, and ran over to him.

"It's the soul," he said, marvelling.  It wasn't guilt anymore. It was a soul. Weird, that. "Kind of stings."

She was staring, not at the amulet, but at his face.  "It's burning you."

"I'm okay. Now get out!"  He put out his hand and gave her a little shove.  But a little shove wasn't enough with the slayer, and she stayed put.

"You've done enough. You can still–"

"Just go. I'll do the clean up here."

Faith yelled from above the fire and heat, and Spike gathered up what was left of what had once been pretty impressive strength, and raised his hand to shove Buffy again in the direction of the exit.  She sensed it, and stepped back in time to avoid his hand.  But she still didn't leave. "Spike, look, I'm sorry about–"

"Buffy," he exclaimed. The pain was really getting to him now, and he was going to collapse to his knees, and if he did that now she might decide she had to stick around. "Go. No hard feelings about whatever. I promise."

She nodded, her face somber even in the harsh light from his chest.  And then she took off through a shaft of sunlight back into the day.

It was only then that he realized that nothing the other-Buffy had said was coming true. She hadn't said she loved him, and he hadn't thanked her, and she hadn't grabbed the amulet and flung it into the pit.  The future wasn't happening, not for him anyway.

His knees started to buckle. The amulet. He could do it himself. If he wanted to live–

For her. Both of her.

He took hold of the amulet and yanked it over his head.  It left blisters on his chest, on his hand. But his flesh sizzled and didn't burn, didn't dust.  Not yet.  He threw it sidearm into the great yowling hole below.  And then he straightened.  Another earthquake shook the cave, and a fissure opened up– man-wide– off to the side.  

He started that way. But the blaze of the fire reflected off his hand, and he looked down, and there was the ring on his thumb. Her ring.

That way, he thought, and headed for the piles of stones to his left.

He broke his fingers throwing those stones aside, and broke his shoulder battering in the stuck door. And what was left of him was broken when the boiler blew up and flung chunks of steel through the room.  

But the way to the tunnel was still open. That much– that much had come true.  The tunnel she had found was still there, and still open.  

He dragged himself across the ground and into the opening.  There was no fire there, only a long darkness that smelled of dirt and old steam. And it was so familiar, so comforting, he almost lay down right there on the tile and gave into unconsciousness.  But he couldn't do that to her. Her tunnel was here, even if nothing else was true.  He had to try–

He got halfway through before he collapsed. He ought to built that stone wall– the fire might get this far, or a flood from the boiler. But everything hurt, and he couldn't stand, and all the rocks were too far behind him.

When he opened his eyes, it was night. It was the same darkness around him, this deep underground, but as always, he knew when it was night.  There was a pinpoint of greater darkness ahead and above, and he pulled himself to it.  A ladder led up the wall – twenty feet or so, to a manhole with a tiny aperture.  He could almost see the stars up there, and he put his hand on the lowest rung.

The steel was cold under his hand, and the pain was so great he almost sank back into insensibility. She wasn't going to come for him. Not his Buffy, and the other Buffy – what? Didn't exist, or existed in some other dimension, sod it, he wasn't Stephen Hawking, even if his body was just as useless. He didn't know where the hell she was, his time-travel Buffy. All he knew, if she'd ever been here, it had already happened before his apocalypse. And his own Buffy wouldn't be coming.

_Meet you on the other side._

They'd never said that. She didn't even know that he'd thrown the amulet and gotten away.

She wouldn't come looking for him.

His bones were knitting already– the curse of vampire healing. They were knitting crooked, he could feel it.  If he stayed here, he'd end up hopelessly twisted. Or he'd dust himself to escape the pain. He had to get out. Find the night– it was up there somewhere– and get out.

But–

He couldn't just leave. Not like this. What if she came back in search of him. Okay, she wouldn't. But if she did....

He forced himself to sit up, his back against the curved wall of the tunnel, his head against the bottom ladder rung. Then he stretched out his broken hand.  Somehow he got the ring past the swollen knuckle, and set it gently down on the floor of the tunnel.  

And then he took a deep breath and climbed, hand over hand, up the ladder into the night.


	3. Chapter 3

The End of End of Days  
Spike 3.0

 

The kiss was no big surprise. He'd had a front-row seat at the whole Buffy-Angel opera, and this sequel wasn't anything new.  So big deal. She was kissing Angel. Spike had more to worry about than Buffy learning once again that her first love didn't love her all that much.

He let go of the gatepost and shoved the two pieces back together. Nah. He wasn't mad. His mind was on something important– that amulet Angel brought with him.

It came from Wolfram & Hart. Stuck here in Sunnydale, Buffy might not know what that meant. But Spike did.  Willie had given him all the dope before decamping for Santa Barbara; it was the buzz of the demon world, Angel's peace treaty with W&H. It had nothing to do with Sunnydale's current crisis, as far as anyone knew. But the amulet– that would bring it all together.

Well, Spike thought, W&H deserved to have to deal with prickly little Sunnydale. Those Senior Partners thought all the world was like LA and Rome, easy to seduce and manipulate. Good luck with trying that in Sunnydale, with its slayers and watchers and demons who had been kicked out of every after-hours bar on the West Coast.

And Spike.  He wasn't going to let that amulet stay in Angel's lily-white and easily led hands.  And he wasn't going to let it corrupt (or kill) Buffy either.  He'd wear it himself. He was already about as corrupt as he was likely to get, and what he wanted most, he'd already lost and W&H couldn't get it back for him.

Nothing to think about now but the final battle, which wouldn't be so final if Spike had anything to say about it.

He glanced back over his shoulder at the temple door. No Buffy.  She and Angel must be having quite a little convo–

"Spike?"

It was her voice, only heartbroken. And ahead, not behind. He turned slowly, and there she was. But she was wearing a summer frock with a light shawl pulled over the shoulders, and her hair was flowing down, and the look on her face–

Well.  That look on her face.  He'd never seen it before. Never directed at him, anyway. "Buffy," he said, and all his resolve broke. All those resolutions just to do right and keep her alive and fight her battle and expect nothing in return but her continued survival... No. He wanted her to keep looking at him like that forever.

She came forward and took his hand and without a word led him away from the temple, off the grounds and down the deserted main street.

It was too good to be true.  Finally he stopped and said, "You're not the First Evil, so who are you?"

She turned to him and put her hand on his cheek and whispered, "You're so much like him. You are him, aren't you? Just... another him."

Okay, too weird now. "Buffy–" It was Buffy, that much he knew– his body was on fire, the way it always was with her so close– but the Buffy he knew was back at the temple.  "Buffy."  Had to get this together, because she didn't seem any more coherent than he was. She was staring up at him – he could get used to that expression. No. He couldn't. He wanted it always to be as special as it was right now. 

Pull together. Right. One. Two. Three– "Another dimension, right?"

"I don't know. Another time. The future. But you're not him."  And then, as he watched, her heart broke. He saw it happening. The awareness dawning in her green eyes. The pain a moment later. Heartbreak. And for him–

Nah. Not for him. "Maybe you should explain."

"I lost you. Him. You." She rubbed at the tears with her palm, then took hold of his hand.  He felt the tears there, on her hand, and it humbled him. Never expected to–

"Slayer," he said softly, "don't want you crying for me. Even if it's... not for me."

"Forgive me." And she smiled a sad, broken smile. "Even if it's not really you."

"Forgive–" He shook his head. "What for?"

"For letting you go. For not telling you how I felt. For kissing Angel and not kissing you."

That last, at least, had something to do with him.  And he'd already forgiven that. Sort of. "Don't need to forgive you, pet. Other way round, maybe."

She gave his hand a shake. He felt it in his bones. She said, "I wish, just once, you wouldn't argue with me. Just say you forgive me. And then I'll tell you something."

It felt wrong, forgiving her. But he did it anyway. It was what she wanted, and at some point he'd sworn to give her what she wanted.  "Okay. Forgive you. Now what do you want to tell me?"

She kept walking, tugging at his hand, and he had to go along.  He sensed the other– his own Buffy, even if she wasn't ever his– somewhere, maybe still within the temple gates, somewhere within his range. But he'd deal with that later. Now there was this one who cried for him, and needed him, at least for the moment.

She stopped in front of the high school.  As always, he felt the tremors of the hellmouth– worse now than usual, great swelling emanations of hatred and power.  She had to feel them too, but she was standing still under the flagpole, just on the edge of the glow from the streetlight, and she looked straight at him.  "I told you, I'm from the future."

"Right."

He didn't believe it, but then he didn't disbelieve it either. It was more likely that she'd be from the future than that she'd ask him to forgive her, and she'd already done that. 

"I came back for a reason. I want to tell you– " her voice broke here, and he had to take her other hand and pull her close. Well, he had to. There were some things a bloke just had to do, and comforting a sorrowing lady was one of them.  So he held her close until she was able to speak again, and then, all in a rush, she said, "I was hoping I'd actually come back to my own time and fix things. Tell him I love him and tell him I want him to survive and that I'd be waiting for him– that's what I'd tell him. If I had a chance. But this isn’t my time, and –"

"And you got me instead."

"Yes," and there was so much regret in her voice. It almost made him laugh.

"Always second-best, that's me."

"Stop that." She pushed at his chest until he took a step back. "You're not second-best. You're first-best to her. You're just not... mine. And... and he's gone, and it's my fault, and I can't make it right."

Her grief was too great for him to abide.  He gripped her shoulders and said, "Okay, enough. What's with the misery, then? You came back here why?"

"I told you, I–" she took a ragged breath.  "You want to know what I did?  I did nothing. That's what I did. I thought he'd, you know. Cheated."

"Me?" Spike said skeptically. 

"I know. It's just what I deserved, for kissing Angel, so I had this guilty conscience, and you know, whenever I have a guilty conscience, I blame you, and you suffer."

"That's true," Spike said, because it was true, true for him and his Buffy too.

"What I think happened–" and her voice got low, like she was telling him a secret– "I think I– she– came back from the future. I mean, a, well, a previous Buffy. Previous to me. Maybe one in a long line. I don't know. I think she came back, just like I'm coming back now."

"That's real Dr. Who of you. And her. But how's that matter?"

"I think he– my Spike, well– you know. Slept with her."

"You're kidding." He was sort of impressed with this other Spike.  Took advantage of the situation right smart, and who could object? Buffy future– same Buffy. Same body. Same soul. No problem. He looked down at her, saw the hurt in her eyes. "But you figured it out. That he’d been with her."

"Not that it was... well, some future me. But that he'd been with someone. Yes. Not that it was my right to be mad. Like he said. We weren't lovers anymore. But–"

"He tell you that it was, uh, you?"

"No."

He wouldn't.  Not that Spike. Why bother? Not like it was even remotely plausible.  And probably it wouldn't make much difference. Cheating was cheating, even if it wasn't really cheating. Eye of the beholder.

"So what did you do?"

She shook her head. "Got mad. He had lipstick– " she slid her hand under Spike's coat, between the buttons of his shirt, so her fingers brushed his nipple. "There."

It tingled, where her fingers touched. "Pretty damning."

"That's what I thought.  Then. Now I think... oh, who cares. I got mad and stayed mad and he didn't do what he was supposed to do–"

"Beg you to come back?"

"Yeah. And God forbid I should have to unbend any– " She sucked in her breath, and said, "Anyway. Afterwards, I came back to the, well, crater, I guess you'd call it."

"Seems like you skipped a step there, slayer. Like how the crater came to be? And– what I had to do with it?"

She looked away. "It was your doing. The crater. It was that amulet you wore."

"The one Angel didn't wear," he said, with something between bitterness and triumph.

"That one. So... so it made this crater. And I came back here the next day with Xander. We were looking for any... remains. For the girls. And Anya."

That struck him deep. "Anya didn't make it?"

"No. And – well. I didn't think I'd find anything of you."

No big deal. He'd figured, all along, he'd be dust by next week.  "Yeah."

He started away down the steps the the sidewalk, but she held him back. "Wait. I did find something–" She pulled his hand up, held it up to the light so that the silver thumb ring glinted. "I found the ring. This ring. There was a tunnel, and the ring was resting on the floor. And there was blood around, but no vampire dust.  And–" she took another breath. "And above there was a manhole cover. Flung aside. You– he– must have gotten out that way. But he was out there alone in the desert... there's nothing left of Sunnydale, you know, but a big crater like a meteor struck."

"Wow."

"Yeah. So." Another breath. "So I'm here to tell you.  The tunnel." She reached into her purse and pulled out a piece of paper.  "Xander knows the layout, since he worked on the new high school. And he drew this for me." Sternly she added, "It's correct. He promises."

Spike held the paper up to the light, and nodded. "Looks right to me."  He felt a moment's pity for Xander Harris, who'd lost his demon girl and his eye, and then had to draw this for his enemy.

Damned soul.

"It's just that – well, there was so much blood. I think you– he– was really hurt. The boiler had exploded, and maybe he got hit by that– anyway. I think he was really hurt. And... and so maybe you can go quicker. Get to the manhole before the boiler explodes. Okay?  Maybe sneak in there tomorrow and, I don't know–"

"Turn off the boiler?"

"Yeah. That'd work.  If you can get in. And–" she sighed.

"What?"

"Don't fight with Buffy. Okay? Be nice to each other. I wish– I wish we'd talked. I wish we'd, you know. Talked about you maybe surviving. And made plans to meet. Like you know when the senior class goes to Whizzeyland, and you say if you get separated, you'll all meet up at the Magic Mountain."

He was struck by this. "That's pretty smart."

"Yeah. I just wish I would have said it a few nights ago.  But you still can. Even if I can't find my Spike–" Her expression turned bleak. "He's hurting somewhere, maybe. Or maybe he decided I didn't care, and I can't blame him. Or maybe he doesn't care anymore."

He was still looking at the sketch, but now he put it away, back into his pocket. "He cares. Must be hurt pretty bad, if he hasn't come to you."

"That's not really making me feel better. I don't want him to be hurting, somewhere alone, without anyone to help him. I don't want him to be... "

Dust, she didn't say, but they were both thinking that. That her Spike had survived the apocalypse but not the aftermath.

He couldn't let her think that. "Yeah...."

She looked at him sharply. "What?"

And then, because he loved her (each of her, all of her), he said what he should never have admitted. "If it were me. Hurting. Alone. Needing help."

"Yes?"

"And I couldn't find you.  I'd... I'd go to Angel."

"You... would?"

He shrugged. "I could claim Sanctuary of Aurelius. He'd have to take me in. Take care of me.  It's the law."

"Would he, well, obey that law?"

"Yeah. I think he would."

"So you're saying–"

"Not sayin' anything. Just... sayin'."

She kissed him hard then, right on the mouth, and then drew back. "Hey. None of that, right?"

He smiled down at her and bent to kiss her again. "Maybe a little of that."

She leaned against him, her mouth warm against his jaw. Then she pulled away. "Enough of that. Listen– Spike. I'll say it to you, in case I can't say–"

"No." He put his fingers on her lips. "Save it for him. You'll find him. Probably won't even need to go to all this damned Dr. Who trouble."

"Okay." She smiled tremulously and reached back into her purse. "Willow gave me this to come back."

She came up with a green apple.  Well, that was time-travel for you. Never made any sense. "You eat it, or–?"

She pressed the stem down against the green skin, and disappeared.

 

 

She– the other she-- was waiting on the porch of the Revello house, her face set and angry.  For a second he faltered.  He didn't have the emotional wherewithal to deal with her. He'd already lost her once– twice– tonight, to Angel and to some alternate more lovable version of himself.  Just couldn't go through it again. 

So he just walked past her, up the wooden steps and through the door (at least she hadn't revoked his invitation, but then, she needed him for a little while longer).  He was back in the basement, stretched out on his cot, when she stomped down the stairs.

"Slayer," he said.  He had to smile, because she looked like herself– implacable and stubborn. No tears for this Buffy. 

"What do you have to smile about?" she demanded.

"Just... you. Never mind."

"It's not me that's making you smile.  I saw you with her. I didn't know there was anyone even left in town, much less someone like her--"

"Like who?"

"The bottle blonde. The one you kissed. Several times."

He sat up, setting his boots on the floor. This was actually more entertaining than he’d imagined, back when he was imagining the worst– Buffy telling him he wasn't good enough to wear Angel's poncey amulet, that she'd wear it herself and die.  But she wasn't thinking about Angel or his amulet one bit.  She was thinking about– "Sensed you behind me.  You should've said something.  We could have had a three-way."

This stopped her with an angry word still trembling on her lips, and Spike had to admit that he'd even kind of shocked himself.  Not that it wasn't a bloody brilliant notion, two Buffies, one Spike between them.... 'course it would probably rend the fabric of the ages and explode the time-space continuum, but it'd be worth it. 

Buffy didn't seem so entertained by the vision.  She took a step towards him, her fists clenched. "Not even a two-way. Not even the two-way you were halfway to–"

"Nah. Wasn't going that way, slayer."  Spike knew it wasn't any use, but he held out his hand. "Come here, Buffy. Sit with me. I got something to tell you."

She hesitated there, her hand on the metal post that held up the floor above.  Then, tightly, she said, "Spike, I know you saw me with Angel. I felt you there in the temple. You'd come to help out if I needed it. I know. And then you saw.... okay. So you got even."

"Wasn't like that," he started, but she shook her head.

"You want to hear it hurt? Okay. It hurt. Seeing you with someone else. And now you're going to tell me– Look. Can't it wait until this is over?  I really can't deal with it now."

"With what?" he asked, honestly puzzled. He did have something to tell her, and it was pretty unbelievable, but important nonetheless.

"With you saying you're going to leave."

Oh. "Not going to leave, Buffy. I told you I'd fight this fight with you. For you. Not walking out on you."  Like Angel, he almost said, but didn't, because, hell, he'd just told the other Buffy that if he had to, he'd seek sanctuary and Angel would let him in, and even if he richly deserved it, it wasn't quite fair to be dissing the old grandsire. (Yet.)

She muttered, "Afterwards. You'll leave afterwards."  And then, before he could speak, she rushed on.  "Not that I blame you. It's not like there's much here for you.  Or much me for you. There– there just doesn't seem a lot of me left."

This hurt his heart. "You're all still there, pet.  And I told you. I'm not leaving.  I'll stay and fight your fight again."  And then– well. He didn't want to think about then. That other Buffy gave him a glimpse of what it could be. But it wouldn't be. Not that way. Not the way time-travel worked, or unlife either.

She was still holding onto that metal pole, and he started to worry it was going to collapse under her grip, with the whole ceiling following.  He rose and held out his hand, and slowly, she let go and took a step towards him. "Who was she? And don't tell me I don't have the right to be jealous. I know that, and I still am."

He was going to dust. No question about it. Had to now. Buffy admitted she was jealous. So the world was going to end. At least for him. "You really jealous?"

"Who is she?" she said patiently.

"You won't believe me if I told you."

"Try me."

"Okay. You notice anything... familiar? About her? The way she walked?  Her hair?"

Buffy frowned. "That dress– I saw it in the Baby Phat catalog last month."

"You liked it."

She glared at him.  "Not as much as you did, I guess. Or at least who was in it."

"Buffy–" he had to laugh. It was so absurd. "It was you. Same hair. Same dress. Okay? Just a week or so in the future."

"The future."

"Told you wouldn't believe me."

"That it was me.  From the future. And you expect me to believe it."

Her skepticism was profound, and he thought maybe something dramatic was needed.  He yanked off his jacket, and then his shirt.  "No lipstick," he said.

She stared at him really hard. She hadn't done that for a long time. When she used to do that... it tended to end well.  So he was pretty hopeful, until she said, "There's some on your neck."

"Okay," he said, scrubbing at his neck with the side of his hand. "But there isn't any on my chest."

This brought her closer.  She came close enough to touch him. But she didn't touch him.  "What does that prove?"

"Well," he said, exasperated. "If I'd taken my shirt off, you'd see some lipstick there. Ergo, no shirt-off."

Her eyes narrowed, but there was a glint of laughter there. "I seem to recall that you taking your shirt off isn't a requirement."

"You remember that, do you?"  He put his hand on the button fly of his jeans.  "Seem to recall that taking my trousers off is, and–" He paused there, thumb on the top button. 

And she said, "Well, I'm waiting."

When he didn't move– couldn't move– she said, "Still waiting."

Time to call her bluff. He raised his hands up, palm forward.  "You do it."

She surprised him. Well, she'd surprised him all evening– this her and the other her.  Now she really surprised him. She reached out and undid his buttons and yanked his jeans down, and gazed a moment at him before saying, "You're right. No lipstick."

"Better look closer," he whispered, "just to make sure." 

This made her laugh– it startled both of them, to hear her laugh.  "I believe you," she replied.

Her hands went out and pulled up his jeans, and made short work of his buttons, and he looked away. Way too disappointed.  She was so close– and it had been so long.  Jealousy wasn't going to drag her that last step. Nothing was. Oh. Right. Maybe his death and/or dismemberment. Worked for that future Buffy, after all. Figured out she wanted what she could have had all along only when she couldn't have it anymore– too late.

Well. Not important anyway, not in the grand scheme of things. Not even in the Spike-scheme of things (okay, maybe in the Spike-scheme of things, but not in the Buffy-scheme of things).  What was important was– fighting this apocalypse. Surviving to fight another.

He dropped back on the cot. "So give it to me."

She was still standing there in front of him, her hand out in the air where his buttons used to be. "Give what to you?"

"The trinket Angel brought you. The one with all the power. I believe it's mine now."

Her hand went to her jacket pocket, and he knew she was fingering it, little dexterous fingers caressing the jewel.  "Yours?" she said. "How do you figure?"

Spike had things to do this night, and they didn't include sparring with Buffy. Not this kind of sparring, anyway, and he figured he wasn't to get the kind of sparring he wanted..  He glanced out the narrow high window at the sky. Midnight, give or take a few minutes. He might need a couple hours in the high school, locating the boiler, locating the control panel. Fending off Turok-han.  But here Buffy was, making him jump through hoops to get at what they both knew had to be his.  He said shortly, "Someone with a soul, but more than human? Angel meant to wear it; that means I'm the qualified party."

Buffy was still mad at him– it showed in the tense set of her mouth as she pulled out the amulet and stared down at it. But her mouth softened as she looked back up at him.  "It's volatile. We don't know—"

"You'll be needing someone strong to bear it, then. You planning on giving it to Andrew?"

Her fingers closed over the jewel.  "Angel said the amulet was meant to be worn by a champion."

He stood up, weary of this dance.  Angel. Champion. Years ago– yeah, back when they were mortal enemies and he was the worst vampire in Sunnydale, all that– she'd taken Spike's Gem of Amarra, which would have made him a champion (of evil, at least) and given it to Angel. Her champion. Shit. Angel of course didn't know what to do with it, anymore than he knew what to do with the gem of her love, clueless poltroon that he was. And now here was the Gem of Eternal Dusting, and Angel didn't know what to do with it either, and Spike was still supposed to fight for it?  No way.

He turned away to grab his jacket from the cot.  "Keep it then," he growled. "Only you should know it's going to kill whoever's wearing it."

"How do you know that?"

She knew it too. The knowledge was there in her eyes. Hey. Maybe that was why she didn't want to give it to him. Yeah, and maybe they'd find Elvis there in the high school. "Angel didn't want it."

"He did, but–"

He cut her off..  "If he wanted to bear it, he would. Admit it, slayer. He just wanted to pass it over and get out of town."

This should have hurt her. Should have wounded her deeply. Should have made her spitting mad, this slur on her beloved. But she just nodded slowly. "But Faith and I both fit the requirements. Souled, and stronger than human."

And champions. Even Angel would give his imprimatur to that. Impatiently, Spike shook his head. "Not going to be you. Nor the other girl. Got a right to live, both of you."

She gazed at him soberly. She did care, in her way. She'd been jealous, and she didn't want him to die. That wasn't much– not what he wanted, not what that other Buffy had felt– but it was something. "So do you."

That he agreed with, but he probably shouldn't.  Wasn't the sort of thing a champion would think. A champion was supposed to think that sacrificing himself for the cause was, well, the sort of thing a champion should be glad to do. 

But he wasn't much of a champion. He was hers, that was all.  And he wasn't going to let her die again. That was all. "Give it up, slayer."  He held out his hand. "I got a plan."

"Spike–" she said, and in her sigh he heard memories– memories of times when his plans hadn't gone so well.  (Not always the fault of his planning, of course.)

"Came up with it in consultation with your future self. The whole time/space fabric was sundered for this bloody strategy, so be respectful. And give me the stupid jewel. You know I'm not going to let you wear it."

"Try and stop me," she said (she would say that).  But she glanced down at the amulet in her hand and added, "Your plan. Does it end with you walking away intact? And with, you know, the world still here?"

"Yeah."

"Okay."  She waited till his hand was out again, palm up, then she laid the amulet right there, the jewel central, the chain hanging between his thumb and index finger.  "You're wearing that ring."

"Yeah, I'm going to–" He was about to tell her that he was going to leave it in the tunnel. But she wouldn't believe him. And anyway, he didn't want her prowling around a crater looking for some sign of life. If she was going to find anything, he wanted her to find him. And that wasn't going to happen unless he got to that boiler. "I gotta go."

"You're going to her."

At first, he didn't know what she meant. Then he looked into her stormy green eyes and saw the fury return there.  He could stoke it– make her jealous and angry, keep her up all night thinking about him with someone else. He ought to–

_Be nice to each other._

"I told you," he said. "She's gone back to the future."

"Right."

She didn't believe him. But that was all right. She didn't need to believe him. She just needed to let him go.

_Be nice to each other._

"Buffy, listen. There isn't anyone else. You know that. You know–"

He didn't want to say it. He'd said it enough. Said it just last night, and see what it got him. A night of holding her that meant everything to him, and nothing to her. _Does it have to mean anything?_

She never was very eloquent, his slayer. A woman of action, not of words. He shouldn't need the words. 

Maybe she did. 

_Be nice to each other._

He tried to smile. Didn't quite manage it. "You know I love you. End of story. Now I really got to go before the moon gets too high–"

"I'm going too."  She started up the stairs ahead of him. She always had to take the lead, no matter it was her mission or not.

"Buffy, wait."  He got hold of her arm, and held her there. He was one step below her on the basement stairs, so they were looking right into each other's eyes. "I'm not meeting anyone. You don't have to tag along to make sure."

"If I thought," she said darkly, "that you were meeting anyone, trust me. I wouldn't go with you. Not after what you said about a three-way."

He let go of her arm, but she didn't move away.  "Another fantasy blasted," he said. "I'm going to the school."  He pulled out the sketch and handed it to her. "Looking for the boiler. More important, the control panel, so I can turn the boiler off."

She held the paper but didn't unfold it. "That's your plan? You're going to freeze the Turok-han? In May?"

He pushed past her and headed up to shove the door open.  "You can scoff all you like. I'm still going."

"And I'm still going with you," Buffy said, following him into the dark kitchen. "I just don't understand what turning off the boiler is going to do."

The house was quiet, the convalescents and their nurses all asleep. Well, except for the love being made in a few rooms– Spike could sense it in the slight vibration of the floorboards. He wasn't going to get that kind of action maybe, but  if he got lucky, maybe there'd be a few T-H guards out there on the school lawn. Fighting with Buffy was almost as good as--

He waited until they were outfitted with axes–– before saying, "It's there on the sketch.  The boiler room opens up into a steam tunnel."

She flipped on the porch light as they went out the door.  Then she stopped at the steps and squinted at his sketch. "This is– Xander's handwriting."

"Yeah."

She gave him a suspicious glance as she handed back the sketch.  "Xander's been in the hospital. And I don't think he can see well enough yet to draw."

Spike shrugged. "In a few days, he'll see well enough.  I told you, Buffy, it's from–"

"The future. Right."  She started down the steps, stuffing her dagger into her bag.  "I almost believe you."

"You think I've gone bonkers."

"I don't think you're lying, at least."

"Remember the lipstick.  Bet it's your favorite shade."

She surprised him– not for the first time tonight– by taking his arm as they walked down the sidewalk towards the high school. Yeah, her fingers were digging into his bicep, and her face wasn't exactly kind. But she was touching him. Holding him. Keeping him close. "My lipstick. The dress I wanted to order from Baby Phat. A sketch from Xander.  Okay. It can't be much more crazy than the principal and Faith hooking up. So... what did this future-me tell you? Do we win?"

He frowned. He hadn't thought to ask about that. She'd survived, and that was what mattered. "Yeah. We win."

"And everyone gets out alive."

He remembered what the future-Buffy had said about Anya. Best not to mention that. Best not to think of it, or he'd look at Anya wrong, and she'd figure it out. Anya had always been too good at reading him, some demon-empathy maybe. She'd look at him and see her future, and– best not to mention Anya. "You lot do fine. And I guess I make it out. Through a steam tunnel.  But–"

He didn't have time to tell her more. They both sensed it at the same time, as they turned the corner to the high school's block– that dead air that presaged a Bringer infestation.  They took up their fighting stance, back to back, moving like they used to– like a team. Like partners. Like dancers. 

The T-H were supposed to be powerful, more powerful than most vampires. But Buffy and Spike together– well, they could take on the whole Italian soccer club, and Brazil too, and Ali and Frazier as dessert. No one could fight like the two of them– maybe, he thought for the first time, maybe they’d win the big one. Together. Maybe. Hey, the future Buffy survived, and bought a Baby Phat dress, and so the world must have survived too, or at least Beverly Hills.  He shoved the last of the uber-vamps into Buffy’s stake and smiled. “Hey.  We’re done.”

“For the moment,” she said, looking warily around, but she shoved her stake back into her bag and started up the steps.  “Boiler, huh?”

“Yeah. We’re looking for the control panel.”

The main floor of the high school was deserted, but Spike scented uber-vamp and brimstone in every corner.  His nerves were aflame, and Buffy’s proximity and silence didn’t help.   But at least she was there. Still. With him.

He made a few wrong turns, but even that didn’t coax a protest out of her.  She stayed silent even when they located the HVAC control panel in the big utility room near her old office, except to point out the bank of switches labeled “boiler”.  He flipped them all, and felt the vibrations in the floor slow and finally halt as the monster below settled into hibernation. 

“Done,” he said unnecessarily, and turned to find her studying him.

She reached up to touch his cheek.  Just like that.  And her eyes had that intensity he remembered from last year.  Nah. Shouldn’t– not like this.

But he’d always been weak with her. Strong in the ways she wanted, weak in the ways she didn’t.  She pulled him out of the room, into the corridor, and pushed him against a bank of lockers. He felt the metal doors cool and flat against his back, and he closed his eyes and kissed her.

It wasn’t what he wanted. But it was what she wanted. (And it was, well, some of what he wanted.)

There wasn’t much left of the night when they got home, but they spent it together on his narrow cot. “Mine,” she whispered, kissing his neck where the other had kissed him. She sucked hard, like a vampire would, so hard it would leave a mark that would last a lot longer than lipstick. “Mine.”

“Yours,” he agreed, whispering it into her hair. Whispering, even quieter, so quiet she could choose not to hear it, “Mine.”

 

 

He stayed out of her way the next day. She’d figured something out, sometime during that night– maybe during the fight, maybe by the lockers, he didn’t know. And she didn’t tell him what. He didn’t need to know, and didn’t want to know, didn’t want anything said that would dispell the echoes of her fierce claim on him– “Mine.”  He stayed in his cot, eyes closed, all day, while she had her meetings with her lieutenants and her minions.  She would come back to him when she was ready. That much he knew– now.

And late that night, she was back, her boots clumping on the basement steps, her arms full of her clothes for the morrow. Her fighting clothes.  She needed sleep as much– more– than loving, and he let her sleep (okay, just one quick moment of full wakefulness, both of them hot and breathing hard, but the rest of the time, she slept).

The morning came too soon, but then it always did.  He watched her dress, watched her take a deep breath and start up the stairs. Watched her glance, just once, back at him.

Then, sighing, he donned his own clothes, and the stupid amulet. If it killed him, well, it would serve him right, for getting the happiness he didn’t deserve.  (Not that he repented a moment of it.)

It wasn’t until the fight was nearly done, and the amulet burned at his chest, that he thought of the other one, and what she had said.  Buffy was standing in front of him right then (this Buffy, not the other one), and she was saying something in a rushed voice, as the boulders were falling around them. “Buffy,” he broke in, “you have to go. I’ll finish up here.”

She looked like she wanted to protest, raising her hand. He brought his own up to meet it, finger to finger, palm to palm. Everything stood still, just that moment, and the flame inside him burst between their hands.  “Go,” he said, shoving her away. “I’ll finish–“

“I want you to live,” she said. Imperious as always, his Buffy. “I want you with me.”

“I can’t go with you–“

She didn’t wait for him to complete that. She seized the amulet and yanked it off him, the chain breaking, scraping his neck. Then she flung it away.  “Come on–“

“I can’t,” he said.

She looked over at the sunlight streaming in through the steps. “The boiler room?”

“Right.” He gave her a push, and as she ran away, the roar of the hellmouth fire and the screams of thousands of uber-vamps, “Magic Mountain!  Remember– Magic Mountain!”

She looked back, her face knotted up in confusion.  And he remembered what he’d told the other, where he’d go if he got hurt– “Angel!” he shouted, and couldn’t say more, because the roof was collapsing, and the floor too, and it didn’t look like she was going to leave if she didn’t see him start to leave too.  So he motioned harshly away towards the upper floor and started towards the heavy metal door to the boiler room. Only then did she dash up the stairs.

Magic Mountain, he wanted to tell her one more time, but his chest was filled with smoke, and anyway, she was gone.

 

 

The admission was $40, and he didn’t have it, and anyway, he’d never paid any sort of admission, not in a century or more at least.  So he went around the side of the big entrance arch, around through a dark, damp alley lined with container sheds, and painfully pulled himself up and over the fence.  His cane – it would be a poncey sort of accessory, only he insisted on stealing one with a dagger hidden in the handle– clattered to the ground ahead of him, and he limped over to pick it up.  Whizzeyland.  A place of artifice and glitter, lights in the fake trees, palm fronds here and plastic thatch there. 

She wouldn’t be here.  Even if she’d understood his cryptic directive – they should have talked that last night, instead of making love (okay, no, they should have made love)– she wouldn’t be here. Not after two weeks. He’d spent too long unconscious there in the steam tunnel (the boiler held, but the roof didn’t), and took too long limping his way, night by night, to LA.   She’d have given him up for dead, and gone on with her life.

But what the hell. Not like he had anything better to do, now that he’d healed enough to get this far.

She wouldn’t be there– but his pace quickened anyway, as he got close enough to see it, that plaster-of-paris pyramid rising out of the concrete, into the dark night sky.  He’d seen it before– Dru had loved the Whizzey show– but never for real, and never so close.  And never with Buffy standing tense and waitful underneath.

She flew into his arms, like Tinkerbell, all vibrating wings and pounding pulse and searching mouth.  “Spike, Spike,” she whispered over and over. “Love you love you love you.”

He thought maybe she meant it. 

He didn’t want to push her away, but all around them, parents were gasping and children were getting an education.  So he set her back on her feet, and kept his hands on her waist, and stared down into her glittering eyes. “You came.”

Her mouth set mutinously. “Every night for two weeks,” she said. “Magic Mountain Angel.  I couldn’t find any angel around here, but it’s the only Magic Mountain I know of–“

“I meant –"

But she didn't care what he meant. She was taking his cane and giving him her arm instead. "Lean on me," she whispered.  She took his weight, settled her own against his side. "I'm here," she said, gazing up at him. "And I'm yours. Okay?"

"Yeah," he replied. "Okay. Okay."  Okay.


	4. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the actual for real ending.
> 
> And don't say you weren't warned. Schmoop warning.

Spike 2.0, Buffy 2.0

Wolfram and Hart.  Of all places to look for Spike-- a fancy law firm in downtown LA.  But this was where Angel, for some reason, had ended up, and with Angel was where the other Spike insisted she'd find her own.  This wasn't a welcoming place-- a echoing lobby, a snotty receptionist, and a guy with a gun.  Just as Buffy was about to shove the security guard right out of the way, Angel appeared on the mezzanine above the lobby.  "Buffy," he said, in that sad, portentous voice of his.

She almost melted. Almost asked him what was worrying him. But then she straightened and gazed up at him. "Is Spike here?"

A second's pause, then a headshake. The pause told her the truth. "He is, isn't he?" She shoved the guard aside and started up the stairs. "I want to see him."

"Buffy–" Angel was looming there, at the top of the stairs. "I don't think he wants to see you."

Okay, that hurt. But then she remembered that other Spike, and his kiss, and his assurance– "Yes, he does. Take me to him."

Angel just stood there, blocking her way. "I mean... look. He's pretty banged up.  He told me– he didn't want you to see him this way."

Oh. She reached out a hand, took hold of the railing.  "That's not the same thing," she said defiantly.  And then she gave in. "How– how badly banged up?"

Angel sighed. "Pretty bad." But he turned and headed down the hallway, and she had to run to catch up.

He was here. The other Spike was right. Here was where he'd go, if he hadn't anywhere else to go. "You took him in."

"Had to," Angel said grudgingly. "He claimed sanctuary." After a moment, he said, "Like I said. He was pretty banged up."  And then he stopped in the middle of the wide hallway, and put out his hand to stop her. "I mean it, Buffy.  The pain was so bad, the doctor put him into a coma because he would have dusted himself otherwise."

"A coma," she whispered.

"Yeah.  He was all... broken." For just a moment then, Angel looked broken himself, his big shoulders drooping, his arms hanging slack.  "And he'd started healing. Wrong. So they had to break everything again– "

"Oh."  She closed her eyes. The light here in the hallway was too bright. And the thought of him, all broken, and then broken again– "How is he?"

Angel shook his head. "He's never come out of the coma." Awkwardly he added, "We– vampires– do that. Just go into stasis sometimes. Like hibernation. It can last years."

Enough of this.  Buffy grabbed his arm hard and yanked him forward. "I said, I want to see him. I don't– " her resolve faltered here, and it took her a moment to finish. "I don't care if he's in a coma.  I just want to– " see him. Touch him. Tell him what she didn't have time– didn't take time– to tell him. He might never hear, but she could tell him.

"All right." Angel sighed and led her around the corner to a set of swinging doors– white and metallic, like the doors in a hospital.  But the room he led her to was warmer than a hospital room– filled with flowers and light and stuffed animals– and there, in the bed, his leg in traction, both arms casted, his hair golden against the white pillow, was Spike.

He wasn't breathing. He didn't have to, of course, but Spike– her Spike– had never been so still, even in sleep.  In fact, he'd always been a restless sleeper, sometimes waking her up (those few times she slept in his arms) with muttered phrases and sudden motions.  But now he lay there so still....

She had just seen him a few hours ago– his usual lively self, his face too expressive and his mouth moving– kisses, words, pouts. That mouth– it wasn't his, of course. Wasn't her Spike's, but that other Spike–

This Spike was hers, this still, silent, broken Spike.  Hers.  She broke away from Angel and went to the bed, sinking down on the chair beside.  "Spike," she whispered.

Nothing moved.  Except her hand– she reached out to touch his face, his bandaged cheek.  Who was he?  He didn't know she was there. Didn't even know he was there. Didn't love her. Couldn't love her.  There was only...

Only her. And the pain swelling in her heart.  "Spike," she whispered again. "It's okay. I'm here. I'll make it okay."

And then, cupping his cheek in her palm, she said, "Listen.  I didn't tell you– I meant to tell you. But I didn't have time. Maybe I didn't make the time. But I am going to tell you now. Maybe it's too late, but–"

The door abruptly slammed shut, and Angel was gone, and she was alone with Spike.  "Spike."  She curled her fingers to stroke his eyebrow. "Listen. I love you. I miss you. I want you back."

She would stay, she decided. For now. For as long as it took. Forever. Because–

"Buffy–" he murmured.  His eyelids fluttered, and she held her breath.

Then, slowly, she let it out so she could say his name. "Spike."  And then, "I'm here. I love you. Come back."

And he did– though the effort seemed to cost him too much.  He opened his eyes, and closed them again right away, like the light was hurting him. "Buffy," he said again, and his hand at the end of the cast clenched into a fist and then opened, and hastily she slid her fingers to his grasp.

"Open your eyes," she said, "I love you. Open your eyes."

And he did, and he gazed up at her, and turned his face so he could kiss her palm.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published on LiveJournal November 2006-February 2007.


End file.
